The advent of sports and entertainment activities has brought an immeasurable number of hours of enjoyment to all who have partaken, both from the participant's and the spectator's perspective. Until stadium lighting was introduced, however, all group sports were relegated to competitions during daylight hours. Organized baseball, for example, did not see its first nighttime competition until the 1880s, when carbon lamps were introduced to provide illumination of a baseball game played during non-daylight hours. The lighting developed for that game was imperfect, generating just enough illumination to discern the movements of the pitcher, and leaving the impression that nighttime sporting events would be impractical.
Since the 1880s, however, such vast improvements have been made to provide visible light to illuminate sporting activities that virtually every arena built for the purpose of hosting sporting events is now equipped with light generation facilities. It can be said, therefore, that the many advantages associated with hosting sporting events at night has necessitated the development of lighting technology to facilitate such activities.
When sporting and/or entertainment activities are conducted in areas that are not conducive to illumination, however, then other methods must be employed to facilitate the sporting and/or entertainment activities. For example, temporary lighting may be utilized to facilitate illumination within certain areas of parks, beaches, playgrounds, etc., so as to temporarily illuminate those areas for play.
Still other methods to facilitate sporting/entertainment activities involve the illumination of the objects of the activity, rather than the activity itself. For example, zinc-based products may be utilized, such that when the zinc-based products are exposed to ultra-violet (UV) radiation, they glow. As such, the so-called “glow-in-the-dark” products emanate enough visible light to be visible during non-daylight hours. Such zinc-based products, however, require a source of UV radiation, such as sunlight, blacklight, or fluorescent light to be used as the charging agent before the zinc-based products may be caused to glow. Zinc-based products, therefore, may not lend themselves well to sporting/entertainment activities that do not have access to such UV radiation sources. Strontium-based products may also be utilized to produce glow effects. Strontium-based products, however, must also be charged with an artificial light source, such as fluorescent or incandescent light, or a natural light source, such as sunlight, before the strontium-based products glow.
Other products, such as emergency devices utilized to preserve the life of those in emergency situations, or to protect the lives of those emergency personnel charged with saving the lives of those in emergency situations, are simply deficient. In particular, while such emergency devices may be implemented with light reflective material, they do not emit light themselves. As such, a separate light source is required so as to activate the reflectivity of the emergency devices to make them visible.
Efforts continue, therefore, to develop self-illuminating objects, useful during sporting, entertainment, emergency, and safety activities, that are not dependent upon a source of light for activation. Furthermore, efforts continue to develop such self-illuminating objects that are not dependent upon a separate source of light to be visible.